Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ) in critical condition, 6 others killed in Arizona

[exopolitician]

AP reports outlook is "optymistic" and she is esponding to commands from doctors.

Incredible.

I was going to say, everyone at the beginning of this thread kept saying she was dead.

[exopolitician]

http://www.alan.com/2010/03/24/palin-puts-gun-sighs-on-target-map-says-ti/

Crazy coincidence.

[exopolitician]

http://www.alan.com/2010/03/24/palin-puts-gun-sighs-on-target-map-says-ti/

 
Crazy coincidence.

Please see Wormguy's signature.

Yeah and? I just said it was a crazy coincidence.

[exopolitician]

I'm serious. It's one thing to have very different opinions. It's another to use this as a poltics as usual type of thing. Let's just pray/ hope for recovery.

According to the BBC, she is not doing too well. They reported she was in critical condition.

Alot of conflicting reports, I was on CNN and MSNBC earlier and it said she was awake and able to identify her husband and was now asleep.

[exopolitician]

I'm serious. It's one thing to have very different opinions. It's another to use this as a poltics as usual type of thing. Let's just pray/ hope for recovery.

The only reason why such a horrible action was made possible is because of the utter partisanship and the hatred campaign led by the insane right. Those who are trying to make as if there were no correlation are just burying their heads in the sand.

...and the fact the kid was insane.

[exopolitician]

I just feel it doesn't connect with any party affiliation or the negative rhetoric thats been floated around the past few years. He just seemed like a disgruntled conspiracy theorist, who was not right in the head. It's pure coincidence Sarah Palin's graphic mentioned Rep Giffords, and something harmful eventually did happen to her.

[exopolitician]

I do think it matter that Palin, unlike others, never called for violence against the government or elected officials. She blithely joked about it and played up her affection for shooting, and it makes a lot of people queasy, but we must distinguish between her, well, vulgarity about guns and the people who've actually spoken about the potential for watering the tree of liberty with blood etc.

It's obviously a stupid act on Palin's part, but I don't fully fault her for this incident.

[exopolitician]

I'm serious. It's one thing to have very different opinions. It's another to use this as a poltics as usual type of thing. Let's just pray/ hope for recovery.

The only reason why such a horrible action was made possible is because of the utter partisanship and the hatred campaign led by the insane right. Those who are trying to make as if there were no correlation are just burying their heads in the sand.

Look, hateful rhetoric (although I'm not sure very many truly hateful things have really been said) might encourage some nut to act in the way he did in this case...but someone as mentally disturbed as this person is basically a bomb waiting to explode at some point. It's really not a politically motivated killing in the sense that Giffords was shot because of certain votes she cast. Indeed, if the maniac lived in a different district...say a district represented by a Republican or even a Tea Party member..I see no reason to believe the attack would not have happened.

This guy hated government...authority...etc, and saw his chance to stick it to the man by shooting a member of Congress. I don't believe Gifford's party or ideology played a very big part in this.

Exactly.

[exopolitician]

What else can you say that a certain segment of the left needs ... deperately needs ... a pretext of this sort to use state force to silence the Tea Party, even when the situtation does not at all serve the purpose.

In the left's defense, who has demanded that the Tea Party be silenced by "state force"? I haven't heard anyone even cone close to that.

The Austrian kid mentioned something about using some law, or something, to silence Palin if her blogs were discovered on the shooter's computer.

The "Austrian Kid" is part of the American Left?

The sentiment was expressed here by a foreigner, but the idea of banning hate speech, which they presume Palin expounds, certainly exists among the American left. **

Not ban it, but she definitely needs to watch what she says. That goes for anyone in both parties.

[exopolitician]

This doesn't help:

You must be logged in to read this quote.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/01/09/westboro-baptist-church-arizona_n_806319.html

[exopolitician]

The killer was nothing more than a lunatic. He has been described as someone that hates those in power. He has views that match those of the far left and the far right. Time to accept that and stop blaming one side for this.

I agree with this, and I hate when you start becoming really sarcastic in your posts. Of course I don't fault Palin for this, she had nothing to do with it. The only thing I hold against her is her "rhetoric" shes used the past year or so. That goes for a lot of other people, and ive already said people should watch what they said whether they are Democrat or Republican.

[exopolitician]

So he might be affiliated with the American Renaissance?

[exopolitician]

The killer was nothing more than a lunatic. He has been described as someone that hates those in power. He has views that match those of the far left and the far right. Time to accept that and stop blaming one side for this.

I agree with this, and I hate when you start becoming really sarcastic in your posts. Of course I don't fault Palin for this, she had nothing to do with it. The only thing I hold against her is her "rhetoric" shes used the past year or so. That goes for a lot of other people, and ive already said people should watch what they said whether they are Democrat or Republican.

And how do know that this guy even heard this rhetoric?  Looking at the description of him from others, this guy did not have Tea Party written all over him.  What makes even think that a guy this far out would be swayed by rhetoric, without regard to the source.

I didn't say he was part of the Tea Party, I'm just saying that Politicians who use rhetoric like Palin and the Tea Party aren't helping the cause when something like this happens. It can be influential, even though I've already said the guy didn't need influence. He is legit insane.

The killer was nothing more than a lunatic. He has been described as someone that hates those in power. He has views that match those of the far left and the far right. Time to accept that and stop blaming one side for this.

I agree with this, and I hate when you start becoming really sarcastic in your posts. Of course I don't fault Palin for this, she had nothing to do with it. The only thing I hold against her is her "rhetoric" shes used the past year or so. That goes for a lot of other people, and ive already said people should watch what they said whether they are Democrat or Republican.

If this was tied to a Tea Partier or other far right winger, I'd agree but this nut wasn't acting on what Palin or Beck or anyone else said. In fact, he probably hates them, too, so I don't see how their rhetoric is to blame.

If Palin had "nothing to do with it," I just ask that you don't indulge certain people when they post the "targeted districts" map. As someone that follows politics, it ought to be accepted that posting that is extremely disingenuous.
[/quote]


The Targeted Districts don't actually mention certain people by name though, I feel like they are both entirely different. Not only that, but they are all located on a map by Gun targets. Quite different and I don't think it's fair to compare the two.

[exopolitician]

The Targeted Districts don't actually mention certain people by name though, I feel like they are both entirely different. Not only that, but they are all located on a map by Gun targets. Quite different and I don't think it's fair to compare the two.

...

Palin's map is of targeted districts and the targeted districts are showing which ones were vulnerable for a Republican pick up. They are located on a map and of course they are going to name the incumbent member of Congress that is being targeted for defeat. Or should we not be allowed to say which members we want losing now?

I know that. It's still irresponsible of Palin for representing it the way she did. Plus the tweets about "not retreating, reloading" and such. Not that it's the central cause, since I have to keep repeating myself, but it still doesn't help the situation.

No one is saying he was a teabagger brownshirt. What people are saying is that many on the right-wing (arguably the far right-wing) in this country have created an atmosphere where this kind of political violence is normalized and subtly encouraged, to the point that something like this happening eventually isn't very surprising at all.

^Yes.

[exopolitician]

You people just do not let up, do you?

The way that people in this thread, and elsewhere, have exploited this tragedy from the very beginning to score cheap (and increasingly nonsensical) political points is sickening.  Do you cretins not have any sense of respect or decency?  Or, for that matter, perspective?  I cannot believe this.  You might recall that after 9/11 the Ann Coulter types at least had the common decency to wait a couple months before saying it was all the fault of liberal surrender monkeys in the media.  The asswipes in this thread are making me ashamed to be a human being.

Reactions like those aren't uncommon though in a situation like this I'm sure.

[exopolitician]

Senator Common Sense.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/01/09/gop-senator-rhetoric-need_n_806462.html

[exopolitician]

Her condidtion has been updgraded to "serious".

What? Really?


EDIT: When I read it, I thought it meant she was getting worse.